Chris Bathgate
Dizzy Seas

First and foremost, the isolated and wounded nature. Its breath and strength that come and go. Its fragilities equal to ours. But not only that. Our human nature, too. And the clear, essential, deep spirituality that connects the two natures. From this meeting, from this hypnotic, warm, and electric center - whose origins can be attributed both to the immensity of time and space and to the smallest of our secrets (if well kept) - works like Dizzy Seas by Chris Bathgate are born.

Despite youthful experiences (the folk-bluegrass group Ambitious Brothers), the tapes and CDs that he was recording since he was 16 (starting in '98), compared to the previous albums released under his name (the last one being Salt Year, 2011), this Dizzy Seas (2017) reveals the deepest side of Chris Bathgate's musical personality. I would almost say part of his subconscious. It is the result of the last five years of hiking “on both coasts, living intermittently in a cabin in the southern Michigan woods,” as he recounted in a recent interview with Outline. The collection is an exploration of hope, moving from solitary reflection to celebrate life and its difficulties. All songs sound as if Chris was stepping back from the world he has always inhabited, honoring and at the same time criticizing himself and the industry.

A circle closing, in short. A bit like the video for “Northern Country Trail,” a theatrical and current representation of his creative process. Conceived and partly shot by Bathgate, the video captures the places where the song was written and recorded. When asked by NPR to describe it, the musician said that “while the base song is structured on romantic tensions, another side of it deals with reality, perception, and memory.” In general, in an interview with Bob Needham of Pulp, he then explained that “these songs are never exclusively about a landscape or location. They are about a more generic 'place.' The melody and words of N.C.T. came to me during a hike along the North Country Trail in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It was the kind of hike where your mind estranges from the place you are.” Again to Bob Needham: “In Illinois, when I was a kid, I was exposed to a lot of traditional folk and old-time music. I experienced an even deeper, stronger communion with the old times in Michigan. So my interest in fiddles may not have blossomed as it did without that relocation. My experiences with incredible folk, traditional, and old-time people really kept that interest alive and allowed the knowledge to grow. I'm not the best traditional musician, but in those circles and those jams, great kindness was extended to me.”

So there is the initial “Water,” a slow rustic march that gradually fades into country atmospheres, accompanied by Chris's manly voice and a subtle throbbing that seems to belong to dreamlike, ancient, original dimensions: “Sometimes my thoughts/ are like lights on water.” “O(h)m,” an instant classic southern-folk with distinct, almost playful hues, dusty and wild with that Ohm repeated multiple times that gives a sense of liberation à la Into the Wild and precedes the brief final outburst. The beautiful and melancholic “Come to the Sea,” a few guitar chords repeated hypnotically and an evident attempt of subtraction, in search of a spiritual purification not too distant from that of the first Bon Iver (“Most of traditional music, for us, is like the manifestation of essence. It is the documentation of the subtleties of existence”). “Beg” re-embraces the most energetic and profound country-blues, stripping it down to the essentials. Perhaps one of the best of the lot, capable of surprising with its syncopations, its bursts of joyful anger, we could call it, and the elegant piano at the end that leads to the following “Hide.” Music for open spaces, for full hearts, for bent souls, consolation for a new generation of cynical, sad, and detached romantics, who have understood - without resigning themselves - how the world works and how alone we are, how much has been lost. “Northern Country Trail” indulges in a long almost prog introduction before turning into a ballad straddling sweetness and vague sadness, distance and closeness, sheltered from any surprise. “Dizzy Seas” - probably the most rock - with its almost oriental beginning, proves capable of emotional nuances ranging from anticipation to a slight sense of surprise to the unmistakable American catharsis typical of those bluegrass violins suspended above the cornfields of Pecatonica (“after finishing elementary school, my family moved to a country house among the cornfields of Pecatonica. We had to drive the tractor to school during prom week. In hindsight, there was very little contact with the outside world, apart from the television. It was a strange and magical place to grow up”). Finally, we reach the album's only collaboration, “Low Hey” (with Tunde Olaniran), and - through the nervous guitar of “Tintype Crisis” - to the epilogue of “Nicosia.”

A counter-tempo and yet modern album, evoking ancient echoes and declining them in ways that are seemingly simple yet surprising along these 10 songs. Capable of visiting the places of traditional American music to give them new names. To see other eyes in the eyes of people now forgotten. To give voice to their voices, to muster strength for them.